I'd like this better if you could tie it to an external chat program, e.g. ichat or trillium. I've been searching around here and on meebo, but haven't seen anything about this idea. So I have the bar turned off for now.
If anybody knows how to do it I'm all ears (eyes)!
If your meebo shows as ' xx Friends online' - go to the top of that list and use the drop down box to change from 'available' to 'sign off chat'.
Once you've signed off, the 'Hide' bar as shown above will appear